I took a day off from work today. Or rather, HR sent me home after a coworker found me lying comatose in my chair. I really needed the day off, as my head, chest, nose, throat, and stomach just aren’t cooperating at all, and I’m feeling chills that aren’t warranted by the 75 degree temperature.

Of course, I wouldn’t have come in to work in the first place if I could have afforded to take the day off. But being a new employee means you start with no vacation. I spent a week in Colorado this summer, and I had to go into a negative vacation balance to do it. Now I’m planning a trip to Japan in the spring, and I want to save up enough vacation time to cover that.

So yesterday when I was having trouble staying awake at work, I just closed my eyes for a bit. Today I made it in OK, but quickly realized that I was completely non-functional, and would have to more or less sleep the whole time. So when a thoughtful coworker noticed, he tried to work something out with HR. The HR lady is very nice, and said I could work from home without using my vacation time, and got a network guy to verify that my laptop had VPN access. I do consider this a favor though instead of just common courtesy, because my group typically doesn’t work from home, and she knows that I didn’t have much chance of actually getting any work done.

I thought that I had caught something from the guy next to me, who sounded like he was coughing up a lung yesterday (I’m sure he wanted to take a day off, but he’s newer than I am, so he has even less vacation time). But then the network guy said he thought I had what one of the other network guys had, and was surprised I was still standing (I might not be tomorrow). Why are all these people forced to work at a fraction of their normal capacity and get the rest of the office sick, instead of just going home?

How about this as a new global HR policy: when you’re sick, you go home. You don’t need to use any vacation time or PTO, you just go home. You work from home if you’re able to, or otherwise you just see a doctor and get some sleep. I’m sure that overall output and morale would increase under this system, and anyone abusing the system would quickly be found out. Everyone wins.

As for me, I might have to take another day off tomorrow, but I won’t know until the morning. But I’m going to remember this experience, and especially the experience I would have had if HR hadn’t been so accommodating. This is part of the “why” for many would-be entrepreneurs, people who are sick and tired of being sick and tired!

[Update 12/15/07 - I did have to stay home the next day. I went to work the following day and people said I sounded like I was going to die. All four people on my team ended up getting sick.]